Lamp strings have been widely used for decoration, especially in celebration or night festivals. The lamp strings which are usually composed of a number of small lamps, preferably having coatings or different colors on the lighting bulb thereof, connected with conductive wires, are usually packed within a container made of a paper blank folded and stapled to form a rectangular receptacle for receiving therein soft padding materials, such as paper fragments, foams, to pad under the lamp string for protection of the lamps from being damaged due to hitting the container during handling and/or transportation. In such an arrangement, the lamps are not securely fixed inside the container and are allowed to move so that collision between lamps often occurs. This damages the lamps.
Further, the formation of the paper container by means of stapling is a labor-consuming job and thus the manufacturing efficiency cannot be increased effectively.
To overcome the problems encountered in such a prior art lamp packing container structure, device for containing/holding made of injection-moldable material, such as plastics, was developed. An example of the injection-molded lamp holder is illustrated in FIG. 1 of the attached drawings. The prior art lamp holder shown in FIG. 1, which is generally designated at 10, comprises a plurality of strip pairs, having a first strip 11 and a second strip 12. On one of the strips, for example the first strip 11, a plurality of lamp base holding slots 13 are formed to each receive and hold therein the base 14 of one of the lamps 15. On the second strip 12, a plurality of lamp bulb holding holes 16, opposing the slots 14, are formed to receive therein the lamp bulb 17 which is electrically received and secured to the base 14. The bases 14 of the lamps 15 are electrically connected together with electrical wires 18.
The plastic injection-molded lamp holder, although capable to effectively secure the lamps individually, has yet certain drawbacks, such as:
(1) Some of the plastic materials that are conventionally used to make the lamp holder is, to some extent fragile, as compared to paperboard. PA1 (2) The contact between the lamp bulbs, which is usually coated with different colors, and the holding ring (reference numeral 16 of FIG. 1) of the lamp holder resulting from the vibration and shock during transportation and/or handling may sometimes cause damage to the colorful coatings of the lamps. PA1 (3) Plastics, which is well known to be incapable to decompose naturally, may casus environmental pollution problem. PA1 (4) The holding of the lamp within the conventional holder requires separate devices to respectively holding the lamp base and the lamp bulb which is complicated in structure.
It is therefore desirable to provide a lamp string holding container structure which overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art structure.